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The annual marketing push in advance of Christmas drove the average cost of iOS loyal customer acquisition up from the year's low of $1.06 in October to $1.38 in November, according to Fiksu. During the same period, average free downloads for the top 200 iPhone apps in the U.S. declined from 5.4 million a day to 4.57 million a day. This year, instead of relying on the annual Apple freeze on App Store submissions, app marketers spent "more freely to get up into the coveted top apps lists before the flood of new users," writes John Koetsier.

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Seasonality and more accurate audience segmentation are among the factors behind a 15% decline in overall application downloads in May, according to Fiksu. "[R]ising [cost-per-install] in 2015 has caused some marketers to look for ways to reduce costs and focus their spend on the right groups of users," Fiksu CEO Micah Adler explains.

The average cost of acquiring a loyal mobile application user last month was $1.97, down a bit from the June high of $2.23, but still the second-highest cost in four years as charted by Fiksu. Rising costs are attributed to a surge in competition in the field and the need to spend a lot on advertising for apps that download for free.

The marketing cost of acquiring a loyal mobile application user reached $1.80 in July, a two-year peak, according to Fiksu. Competition with Facebook's mobile app ad platform and new Apple App Store Top Charts rankings made it more costly to get noticed, analysts say. "There's a major sea change underway now that Apple's ranking algorithm appears to favor highly rated apps and penalize others. App marketers must now work even harder to generate positive ratings," Fiksu CEO Micah Adler says.

The cost of acquiring loyal application users decreased 7% in January, from $1.67 to $1.56, according to Fiksu. That reflects a typical post-holiday pattern, though last year's drop totaled 37%, writes Mark Walsh. In contrast, the Fiksu App Store Competitive Index rose 13% from 5.3 million downloads per day to 6 million between December and January, buoyed by holiday season activations. "We expect brands to allocate more dedicated spending to mobile advertising campaigns in 2013 and to only get savvier about aligning seasonal spending to the ebbs and flows of user acquisition costs," says Fiksu CEO Micah Adler.

The launch of Apple's iPhone 5 spurred a 33% jump in App Store downloads in October compared to September, according to Fiksu. The rise correlates with seasonal shopping and peaked at 5.4 million downloads per day.